When YouTuber Nicole uploaded her acoustic cover of Nicki Minaj’s Superbass on the video-sharing website, she was showered with praise from users around the world. Many described it as a wholly unique venture and applauded her sweet vocals and wonderful rendition of the hit song. Even though the video was filmed using a shoddy camera, it garnered over 7 million views.

There were a couple users who expressed their frustration of the jerry-built camera and even volunteered to buy her a better one. Of course, she didn’t take them up on their offer.

Now that YouTube has come up with this new feature called Fan Funding, I wonder if Nicole and my other favourite YouTube creators will use it to fund their project.

Any YouTube creator who has Fan Funding enabled will have an icon or the ‘Support’ tab in the corner of their video. After users click on it, they have the option to choose how much they’d like to pay. If they leave a comment along with their donation, a special badge will appear next to it. An invoice will then be sent to their email for confirmation. The selected amount will be only visible to the recipient.

At this moment, Fan Funding is only available in Australia, Japan, Mexico and United States. It has also been said that the team is looking to bring the feature to more countries as soon as possible. To boot, it is accessible on desktop browser and the Android app (version 5.7 or higher).

Image Credit: afritickets

It’s encouraging to know that YouTube creators have another means of earning cash from their videos. Sure, most of them get paid from the ads playing before the clips, but it’s not much. Unless they’re huge stars, their earnings are usually next to nothing.

Fan Funding heavily reminds me of other crowdfunding websites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. It even resembles Subbable, which allows fans of popular YouTube channels to support them in their own means. This platform was created by YouTube duo and community leaders the Vlogbrothers (half of which is best-selling novelist John Green) who wanted to find a way to remove the need for ads in the YouTube space.

That said, I’m feeling pretty good about this. I have my eyes on several YouTube creators I’d love to support!

Liliana Rose

30-year-old Liliana Rose has a really beautiful and soothing voice. I came across her music through The X Factor and was blown away by her enigmatic audition. She’s currently in a synth-rock band called Liontide and occasionally posts cover songs on YouTube.

Kaysy Conundrum

This ballad is a better love story than Twilight. (Sorry, Stephanie Meyer. It is what it is.) Kaysy is perhaps, best known for The Fault in Our Stars, an original song inspired by the same-title book by American author John Green. If you love nerdy songwriting, I recommend subscribing to her channel.

Call Me Ishmael

If this rings a bell, that’s because I previously wrote a post about it. Just to bring you back again, it’s a brand new initiative that allows readers to leave a voicemail about “a book they love and a story they’ve lived.” It’s intimate, heartfelt and devastatingly beautiful.